This blog is devoted to talking about comic book characters and elements: the good, the bad and the ugly.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Champions of Angor

Origins

The Champions of Angor was a pastiche / parody of the Avengers. The team first appeared in Justice League of America #87, written by Mike Friedrich, who's friend Roy Thomas introduced a Justice League pastiche in the Avengers comic at the same time. The Champions' planet, Angor, was attacked by robots. They defeated them and decided to track them to their source. The Justice League had been attacked by robots too and were tracking them to their source. The two teams met each other and had a fight, because they thought that the other team was the enemy. Members of the Champions in this story included:

Wandjina (Thor)- He was the leader. He has super strength and weather control. His name comes from an Australian weather spirit.

Jack B. Quick and later Captain Speed (Quicksilver)- Harry Christos is a speedster.

Later...

In the post-Crisis Justice League International, the team reappears. In issue 2, the team (minus Jack B. Quick) tried to destroy the Earth's nuclear weapons (apparently Angor had a nuclear disaster that killed everyone but them). Wandjina stopped a nuclear meltdown in the fictional country, Bialya, but got himself killed in the process. The others gave themselves up to Russian authorities. Wandjina would later be reanimated by Queen Bee II as a weapon. In Justice League Europe #15, Blue Jay and Sorceress escaped from jail. Double S went to Angor and Blue Jay went to the League. It was revealed that a group of villains called the Extremists caused the nuclear disaster. The Extremists kidnapped Sorceress and tried to take control over the Earth's nuclear weapons. It turned out that these guys (except one) were actually Extremists-robot copies for an amusement park (although they did cause the disaster). The owner turned them off. Dreamslayer (the one that wasn't a robot) was defeated by Sorceress. Sorceress and Blue Jay joined the Justice League. In Justice League Quarterly # 3, the amusement park owner went back in time to try to stop the robots from destroying Angor. Members of the Champions (called the Justifiers at this point) that weren't seen before were introduced. They included:

The Bowman (Hawkeye)- An archer that is womanizing and likes the "Black Widow types".